UAE Focus

Al Taweelah alumina refinery covers an area equivalent to 200 football fields.

Al Taweelah alumina refinery covers an area equivalent to 200 football fields.

UAE Focus

EGA marks milestone on alumina refinery project

01 October 2018

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the largest industrial company in the UAE outside oil and gas, has received the first shipment of caustic soda for its under-construction Al Taweelah alumina refinery, marking a major milestone in the project development, a media report said.

Caustic soda and bauxite are the two most important raw materials in alumina refining. Stocks of these materials are initially required for the carefully-planned sequential commissioning of Al Taweelah alumina refinery, reported Emirates news agency Wam.

Commissioning is the process of testing and starting-up individual pieces of equipment and sections of a new plant. EGA began importing bauxite in June. It has also begun stockpiling hydrate, another raw material required to commission Al Taweelah alumina refinery.

More than 10,000 people are currently working on Al Taweelah alumina refinery, which has a total budgeted project cost of approximately $3.3 billion. Al Taweelah alumina refinery covers an area equivalent to 200 football fields, and contains enough steel to build seven Eiffel Towers. The new plant contains more than 430 km of piping and almost 2,500 km of cabling.

There are some 450 different pumps at Al Taweelah alumina refinery, and 144 tanks that together are equivalent in volume to 128 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Once full ramp-up is achieved, Al Taweelah alumina refinery is expected to produce some two million tonnes of alumina per year. This will require some five million tonnes of bauxite each year, which will be imported from the Republic of Guinea in West Africa.  




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